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Digital Marketing for Startups - how to use digital marketing to generate sales leads and acquire new customers
Citation preview
12 January 2012Michael White
Midlands and West Enterprise
Programme
Digital Marketing for Startups
How to use Digital Marketing to Generate Leads and Acquire New Customers
2
Outcomes from today’s seminar
1. Why Digital Marketing is important for technology startups
2. How you can get started
3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end
4. How to prioritize what you should do first
5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc.
6. Where to look for help
At the end of today you should know …
3
Digital Marketing for Startups - Agenda
1 Overview of online marketing strategies for customer acquisition 10.30 – 11
2 Your value proposition – what it is, why it’s important 11 – 11.30
3 Your target buyers – how to profile them and their buying process 11.30 – 12
4 Central role of your website 12 – 12.30
5 Using Pay-per-click advertising to sell technology 12.30 – 1
Lunch
6 Using Social Media to generate leads – blog, Facebook, YouTube etc. 2 – 2.30
7 Email marketing - a key tool for customer acquisition 2.30 – 3
8 Search engine optimization – why it’s important, where to start 3 – 3.30
9 Analytics – understanding your visitors, improving conversion rates 3.30 – 3.45
10 Putting it all together – your online marketing plan 3.45 – 4
Focus: How early stage technology companies can use Digital Marketing to generate leads and acquire customers.
We help technology companies generate leads online and convert those leads to sales.
We provide consultancy on:• Online marketing – we help you with SEO, Google ads, email, social media• Website design – we design and implement search optimized sites• Marketing content – white papers, videos, presentations, blogs, images, product guides• Social Media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Slideshare
We are developing a SaaS system to support:• Marketing automation – online lead generation, capture, score, nurture, allocate
About Us
What we do
Generate more leads at the top of the sales funnel using online marketing – email, Google pay-per-
click, social media and PR
Use simple techniques to filter and process these
leads more effectively so you generate more sales
About Us
Online Marketing Strategies for Customer Acquisition1
Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups
How to generate leads, drive sales and increase revenue using Online Marketing
Today when people want to buy something the first place they look is the web, whether they’re looking for shoes, a car or a house (or a technology product)
You need to make sure they find you when they come looking for your type of product
You need to make sure that when they find you they take an action that’s useful e.g. subscribe, buy, register ...
We’re going to look at the overall approach and the tools you use
Product?
Me
My potential customers
?
• 1. Make sure your product meets the needs of your target customers
• 2. Promote that product effectively to those customers
First - What is Marketing?
Make something people want, then sell it to them
Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups
What is Digital Marketing?
Marketing
Offline
Online
Press ads
Radio
PR
Website
Google ads
Social Media
Direct Mail
Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups
10
In a survey of 4000 B2B buyers in the US, 80% of those
buyers said they found the vendor, not the other way
round.
Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey 2008”
Because this is the way businesses buy today
• Buyers are doing most of their initial research online before initiating conversations with vendors and are better informed at an earlier stage.
• This means that by the time your sales people are aware of a prospect they will already have visited your website, downloaded your product information, looked at competing websites and checked out the product category on blogs and social networks
• We're moving from a focus on traditional techniques like press advertising, mail shots and cold calling, to techniques based on websites, online ‘pay-per-click’ advertising and ‘content-based’ marketing.
Why is Digital Marketing important?
• This is true for technology buyers in particular – they search online both at the research phase and during vendor selection
• Will they find you, and will they find you compelling when they do? How will you compare with the other firms they find?
Sources of information used by US engineers for a specific
recent purchase
Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey 2008”
Why focus on Digital Marketing?
12
Because this is a natural progression of how sales work
Why focus on Digital Marketing?
Sales teams find and persuade the buyers
Buyers start to search online, find product information from multiple vendors
Buyers confer with each other via online networks
Sales now use online tools to prospect, generate and qualify leads Marketing Automation
1997
2006
2009
1950s to
1990s
13
Digital Marketing for B2B is Different from B2C
• The difference isn’t always clear cut• But generally these differences are true
B2B B2C
Higher value e.g. > €10k Lower value e.g. < 1k
High consideration - more evaluation required
Lower consideration – evaluation is faster
Perceived risk – so reducing this risk is important for buyers
Low risk
Complexity of product is greater e.g. large software system, machinery – so need to educate buyers on features, differentiators
Generally less complex – clothes, food, tickets (but exceptions e.g. cars, laptops, some software products)
Longer, multi-phase sales cycle – can be up to 18 months
Immediate – transaction occurs quickly (e.g. purchasing consumer goods, books)
Multiple participants on buyer side (e.g. financial manager, users, IT dept)
One buyer
Executive involvement – may require sign-off from senior staff or head office
Buyer decides for themselves
Branding / emotional appeal less important Branding / emotional appeal very important
14
But for both B2B and B2C, buyers find you online …
• In B2C, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will purchase something directly, right now Buy Now
• In B2B, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will register for something (a white paper, free trial ...).
• Once you have their contact details, you set up a regular communication with them to build up their interest, qualify them as sales opportunities and persuade them to buy later
Download
White Paper
15
The overall approach
Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them?
What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers?
Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the buyers, create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ...
Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social media
B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content
1
2
3
4
5
Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, website, social media and email so they learn and understand your proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice
?How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth focusing on, how do you differentiate from them?
6b
B2C – Sell your product(s) now 6a
7
http://
Example
• Siemens project – acquire customers for a new consulting service• Value proposition – reduced capital costs, reduced operational costs, ease of access to IT systems• Buyers – CIOs, Directors of IT at top 500 companies in Ireland with more than 300 staff• Content – created a white paper called “Migrating to Microsoft in the Cloud”• Drive traffic – used targeted email offering the white paper, plus Google ads and PR• Capture details – 265 contacts with targeted profile after 4 weeks, 25 leads, 10 prospects
Email and google ads Website registration page
Visitor gets white paper
Siemens gets contact details of visitor
The overall approach
17
Revise website based on buyer
analysis, add landing pages
Generate content to attract visitor
registrations
Launch Google pay-per-click
ads
Launch Search Engine Optimization
activities
Generate PR and online PR
Email Marketing
Post to Corporate Blog and Social
Media
Hardcopy Mail to selected contacts
Telemarketing qualification of
warm leads
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9
The tools you use
The overall approach
18
2. Your Value Proposition
19
Three steps to acquire customers
“What are you selling?”
Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
You need to look at this first – no point running a
perfect marketing campaign for a product that’s not going to sell
20
What is Your Value Proposition
“What are you selling?” Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
i Why should I buy something from you?i What value does your product provide to me?i How much is that worth to me – money, time saved, other benefits?i How quickly can I see the value your system delivers?i Why is your product better than other similar products?i Why is your product better than what I do at the moment?i Can you show me examples of your system delivering value?
i Focus on the results you produce rather than what you do
Answer these questions
21
Value Proposition
1. Why should I buy something from you? 2. “What do you want to be famous for?” 3. How do people describe you when you’re not in the room?
Who is this for? What is the need it addresses? How do you solve that need / problem? Is this unique to you? (This isn’t a deal breaker) Your unique capability produces what result for me? What impact will it have ? (Money, time saved ...) Can you give me an example (I want evidence)? How long will it take? What about the obvious alternative? (Do nothing, manual, competitor) Is this value proposition sustainable (i.e. will it still be true next year?)
“What results you produce for me” rather than “What you do “ Can you describe this in a few sentences on a web-page or when talking to a
prospect? E.g. Motorway billboard (= your website)
22
Feature gathering and
product definition
Are you selling the right product for the market, sectors and buyers you are targeting? Are you monitoring the environment in which you operate and the impact this may
have on your product, your customers and your to-to-market approach? E.g. Increased use of iPads/smartphones, SaaS, regulatory changes, competitor
acquisitions, new standards
Value Proposition
23
“Whole product”Not just the technology, but the
surrounding services
Value Proposition
Are you selling the “whole product” This is the “stuff” that surrounds your technology such as training, videos, online help,
good support, partner technologies, integrations
24
Understand Your Buyers
25
Understand your buyers
“What are you selling?”
Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
26
Why can’t I market to everybody?
The problem
• If you have a product that could be used in a lot of different ways, people
are tempted to try to market to all potential users
• You worry that if you focus on one group you will exclude the others
• This is wrong for a couple of reasons:
– Limited promotional budget – you have a fixed amount of money to spend on
promotion. Concentrating that spend on a clearly defined target group will
produce better results than spreading it thinly across multiple potential target
groups
– Trying to be all things to all people generally doesn’t work when launching a
new product. If you designed a car that tried to appeal to young families, men in
their 20s and elderly women, you would end up with a mishmash that appeals
to no-one. The same is usually true with technology products. You should focus
your product and promotion on one or two sectors for your launch.
Understand your buyers
27
Who Are Your Target Buyers?
“What are you selling?” Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
i Where are they (countries, languages)i What industry sectors?i What types of organisation? Size, location ...i Any specific target companies?i What are their typical roles or titles?i How does your system relate to their job?i What are their key concerns/drivers/goals?i What are their demographics? i Where do they hang out online?i What sources of information do they use?
Who are your buyers?
TIP:Use “Buyer Personas” as a way to
analyze your target buyers. These are summary descriptions of your most
common target buyers based on interviews (phone or in-person) with a
sample of customers and prospects.
• Who you are targeting – what kinds of organisations? Who are your favourite customers? Develop an “ideal customer profile”
• Understand the buyers within those organisations - “Buyer Persona Analysis”.
• A description of a ‘typical’ person in that role at your major customer e.g. Finance manager, sales director, MD ...
• Industry sector e.g. Pharma, Finance, Government, Medical Device• Location – Ireland, UK, Germany, US etc.• Size – staff numbers• Size – revenue• Particular characteristics that make these companies attractive
Ideal customer profile
Buyer persona 1
Buyer persona 2
Understand your buyers
Ideal customer profile – current customers
Think of one of your favourite customers• Why are they ideal? - Size, revenue, long-term relationship, good interaction, they
value your product and service ....• Sector, Organisation size, Location• Top 5 roles e.g. Who is usually your champion/ economic buyer / technical evaluator
/ purchasing / users
• Budget
• Why do they buy from you?• What objections do they bring up?• Why do your customers stay with you?• When do they buy from you –
“Trigger events” – e.g. new senior manager appointed, new product announced ...
Understand your buyers
Buyer Personas
• A way to ‘step into the shoes’ of your prospective buyers
• Similar to “design personas” used by web designers, and aligns with Agile approach to user centred product design
• ‘Personas’ are aggregate descriptions of 4 to 5 typical buyers you are going to meet on a regular basis – your ‘imaginary friends’
• Some common ‘types’ e.g. General managers, sales managers, day-to-day users
• Interview sample buyers in each sector you target e.g. Compliance Manager, Sales Manager, HR Manager ...
• What are their key concerns and drivers? How do they describe their job?
• Where do you fit into their overall picture? Are you a big part of their typical day?
• What is their “compelling reason to buy” your products and services?
• What would stop them from buying your services?
• What do they read, where do they gather information, who influences them?
Understand your buyers
Executive buyer
Influencer
End user
Info gatherer
Gate keeper
Champion
Technical buyer
Decision Maker
Example Buyer Personas
Understand your buyers
Buyer Process Scenarios
• Take the Buyer Personas
• Based on real conversations with customers and prospects, walk each ‘Persona’ through an example sales process
• Plot out the interactions, the points where the persona is likely to ask for assistance or information, and who/where they get that assistance from
• Document the kind of information they need at each point
• Identify who they interact with during the decision process
• Identify what 3rd party sources they consider important e.g. Forrester, Gartner
Understand your buyers
33
What content will interest your Buyers? “Bait”
Different buyers have different information needs at each stage of the buying process
So, if you identify 3 to 4 typical buyers – General Manager, Sales & Marketing Director, Head of Compliance ...
Develop content that meets the information needs of these buyers at different stages of their buying cycle
This will be used as online “bait” to bring them to your website
Types of content• Case studies• Research• Education e.g.
slides and tutorials• Tours and
overviews• How to tips• News• Thought leadership
AudiencesInformation Needs
Awareness:Exploratory
Consideration:Deeper Information
Decision:Final steps
User FAQs, tours Product guides Tutorials
Economic buyer Overviews Webinars, white papers, ROI examples
Analyst reviews, case studies
…. …. …. ….
Target and prospect lists
Understand your buyers
35
Your Website – The Foundation for Customer Acquisition
36
Bring people to your website
Persuade them to sign-up for a Free Trial or download
content
Persuade them to pay for your
service
1 2 3Convince them to renew each year –
retain your customers
4
Your Website
Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention
“What are you selling?” Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
37
Bring people (traffic) to
your website
Persuade them to sign-up for a Free Trial or download
content
Persuade them to pay for your
service
1 2 3Convince them to renew each year –
retain your customers
4
Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention
Traffic Conversion Purchase Retention
12
3 4
Your Website
38
Bring people to your website
Persuade them to sign-up for a
Free Trial or Download
Persuade them to pay for your
service
1 2 3Convince them to renew each year –
retain your customers
4
Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention
Use online marketing to drive traffic
-SEO- Pay-per-click- Social media-Email-PR
Use your website to convert traffic
- Value proposition- Reflect the buyer-Home page design-Calls to action- Landing page- Content- Lead capture- Follow-up
Use your product to persuade them to buy
- Define a process- Demonstrate value- Product can sell itself Easy to use- Don’t let them figure things out alone- Increasing usefulness
Ensure they remain customers through a retention process
- Define a process for ‘renewals’ -Remind customers regularly of the value you deliver- Contact them in advance of renewal
Your Website
39
Bring people to your website
1
Traffic
i Think about how your target buyers search and what they search fori Bring them to your site using natural search (using search engine
optimization) and paid search (Google and Bing pay-per-click ads, LinkedIn or Facebook ads, banner ads)
i Get them to register on your site for content or a newsletter so you can bring them back using email
i Encourage them to connect to you via social media – your blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, YouTube, Slideshare
WWW
• People take different routes to your site when searching
• Their searches can fall into broad categories e.g. describing a problem, describing a symptom of the problem, describing what they think the solution is, searching for a product or brand name etc.
• You need to understand which kinds of searches are best for bringing your desired buyer to you
• You need to analyze and understand each major “search route” into your site so you can increase that traffic
• Use Google analytics, KISSMetrics, ClickTale to monitor and analyze where people are coming from and what search terms they are using
Search route 1
Search route 2
Search route N
Your Website
40
Bring people to your website
1
Traffic
i To generate good search traffic your product is not enough - you also need to have good content
i Produce content that will interest your target buyers (use your buyer personas to identify what will interest them)
i Over time a percentage of the visitors who read your content will then register for your trial
i Examples of content people will register for includes: how-to guides, tours and overviews, eBooks, white papers, industry surveys, case studies, Q&A interviews, company and product information
i Place that content as downloads on your site and as posts in your blogi Link to that content using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus etc.
Bring people to your content using Email, Google ads, ‘natural’ search and social media
Ask them to register to download the content e.g. white paper
Visitor gets white paper
You get contact details of visitor
Your Website
Your web-site The most important marketing tool you have Your best sales-person 24/7/365 A sales lead generation machine Drive visitors to your site Get them to take “Most wanted action”
Home page is the most important page
Structure, text Drive your visitors to take
an action Provide downloads and
prominent ‘buy now’ offers Look at competitor sites for
comparison Make most of the page
‘clickable’ Use ‘personas’ to guide
design Implement on well known
CMS – e.g. Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal
Your Website
1. The Website
Have you adequately provided this information on the site? Have you described what you do, who you target, case studies, about us biographies ...
What to include on your site
Your Website
Have plenty of “bait” on your site B2B - Documents, presentations, content that people will want to download Ask for their email address and name in return for downloads B2C - special offers, buy now (if B2C online sales) In both cases, product videos are a great promotional tools
Your Website
Define what you want to achieve by the redesign Measure current figures for visitors, sales, leads Audit your site – list all existing pages, incoming links to your pages, documents ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ will list the pages on your site http://www.seoprofiler.com/analyze/yoursite.com and www.seomoz.org/linkscape to check
how many sites link to you Make sure none of these pages and links are lost when you move to the new site Use “301 redirects” to ensure links to old pages are redirected to the corresponding new page
e.g. www.mysite.com/oldpage -> www.mysite.com/newpage Measure the performance of the new site e.g. using Google Analytics Test different versions of a page – what’s known as A/B testing – to see which one works
better with your visitors
Redesigning an existing site
Your Website
Redesigning an existing site
Your Website
Example sites – software ‘buy now’ site
Your Website
Reflect your buyer in the web-page design (‘outside in, not inside out’) – use “Buyer Personas”
Make it easy for visitors to accomplish goals e.g. find information, contact you (put your number on the home page), get you to contact them (call back button), search
Think about your “Most Wanted Actions” – what do you want them to do?
If you want them to do something (go to a section of the site, download content, buy something) then make it obvious and easy
Keep your website design and structure simple and easy to navigate
Use conventions where possible e.g. ‘home’ at the top left and on company logo
Provide ‘bait’ on each page – downloadable content
If you are doing a redesign, make sure to carry over your existing “web assets” – pages and links
Monitor your site with Google analytics or similar system
1. The Website
Website recap
Your Website
“Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug
HubSpot (www.hubspot.com) – search for “Science of website redesign” and “Website Design Tips and Tricks 2010”
Jakob Nielsen, Usability Bulletin www.use-it.com
Personas – “About Face: the essentials of interaction design” by Alan Cooper et al
MarketingExperiments.com – provide regular statistics on website tests
“The Art of SEO” by Eric Enge, Rand Fishkin et al – advice on good website design for search engine optimization
1. The Website
Website resources
Your Website
49
Google Ads
1. The WebsiteGoogle Ads
Quick way to get traffic to your site
Tell Google which search terms you want to be found for
E.g. show my ad when someone searches for ‘industrial fuel pumps’
Only pay if someone clicks on my ad
Create specific ‘landing’ page for the ad
Avg. 50c per click, can set maximum daily/weekly budget
Can lock down by geography, time, day
11 Keyword analysis
22Ad text
33 Landing page
Campaign set-up – budget, geography
Keyword analysis – what are people searching for
Ad text – variants
Bids and cost-per-click
Bid management
Broadmatch, exact match, negative keywords
Keyword insertion
Google Ads
Think about how visitors search for your product or service
Thousands of ways people search for things, but usually fall into a category :
The actual question they have e.g. “how do I fix a broken pipe”
The answer to the question e.g. “plumbers in Galway”
A description of the problem e.g. “broken water pipe in kitchen”
A symptom of the problem e.g. “flooded kitchen”
A description of the cause e.g. “frozen pipes”
Producer parts or brand names e.g. Bosch, Philips
For each product, think how people might search for it, using the above as a guide
Use Google’s free Keyword Tool to help generate more keywords
Sort by “volume of searches” and “level of competition”
Break them into groups of 20 to 30 keywords and put them in Ad Groups
Google Ads
Keyword selection
To get started, search for your targeted terms and monitor what ads are displayed
Draft 4 to 5 versions of the ad to begin with
Run multiple versions of your ads, monitoring which ones work the best
Google Ads
Writing your ad
2. Landing page design
Rule #1: Avoid unnecessary distractions – push visitor to your “Most Wanted Action”
Be consistent with the ad or email that brought your visitor here, including keywords, logos and other images
Spell out your Value Proposition and the benefits of this particular offer and have a clear call to action
Remove any unnecessary navigation
Try to keep registration fields to a minimum e.g. Name and email
“A/B” test 2 versions of landing page to see which works best
Use Google analytics to monitor conversions
Google Ads
Convert your visitors! – Landing Pages
2. Landing page designGoogle Ads
General approach
Choose your topic “themes” - the main things you want to get found for e.g. IT Support, sales software, compliance management, video learning
Generate keywords under each theme – the more the better – using Google keyword tool
Structure your keywords into “Ad Groups” of 30 to 40
Create multiple text ads per ad group
Monitor
“impressions” per keyword i.e. How many time the ad is shown
Clicks per keyword
Clicks per ad
Cost per click
Clickthrough Rate (CTR) per ad
2. Landing page designGoogle Ads
Resources
“Advanced Google AdWords” by Brad Geddes
“Optimizing landing pages for lead generation” – HubSpot
Unbounce.com – landing page optimization tool
Google WebSite Optimizer
WiderFunnel.com
WhichTestWon.com
ConversionScientist.com
57
Social Media
Social Media
• Why will people share your status updates?• What do you want to happen when they do?
Social Media – Blog
Blogs• What? Basically like a website that you can easily edit and update• Why? Draws more traffic to your web-site, leads, sales• Can form the basis for your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter marketing• Allows readers to provide feedback• Can paste in YouTube videos, SlideShare slides
Tips• Decide who you’re targeting• Mix of entries – news,
opinion, video, photos, informative
• Set a schedule e.g. once a week
• Use images and video• Basic, medium and rich
posts, light & heavy• Strong headlines
Social Media – Blog
Why start a blog?
Social Media – Blog
How do you start a blog?
• Check out Blogger and Wordpress – both are free
• Now also have Tumblr• Keep posts short – 200 to 300 words• Write about how you do your job, how to
use a product, trends in your sector, “top 10 tips”
• Long enough to cover everything important, short enough to keep people wanting to see more
• Put in images and videos, otherwise visually boring
• Have a “Call to action” at the end – offer people something, get them to do something
Social Media – Facebook
Why should you care about Facebook?
• 550 million plus users worldwide
• 1.5 million plus in Ireland
• 60% female, 40% male
• 37% over age of 35
Facebook users by age
Social Media – Facebook
• Over 1.5 million active users in Ireland• Lots of your customers• 2nd most trafficked website• Get found, promote your stuff, connect with
others• Get started: Set up a personal page first• Connect with friends, join groups• Set up a business page second• Put links to your Facebook pages on emails,
web-site, ….• Encourage people to “Like” your page• Set up and promote events• Test Facebook ads
Social Media – Facebook
1. Set up and fill-in your Personal Profile
2. Set up Facebook Business Page (not Group and not Personal page)
3. Put links on your website, email signature, press ads
4. Encourage people to ‘Like’ you
5. Find other pages that have high numbers of your target customers, “Like” them and post to their wall
6. Post videos, make offers, upload photos – keep up a steady stream of content on a frequent schedule e.g. aim for every 2nd or 3rd day
Social Media – Facebook
Make sure you have the “follow” and “like” buttons on your site and blog comments – and “like” is more important
Social Media – Facebook
Who are you targeting?
What are your goals in using Facebook for your business?• Sales• Conversions• Facebook “Likes”• Traffic to your website / blog• Email subscriptions
Set specific targets• Increase sales by XX%• Grow Facebook likes by YY%
Implement Facebook Marketing Activities• Welcome page• “Like” button on your website and blog
Monitoring• Facebook insights• Google analytics• AllFacebookStats
Social Media – Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/marketing
Facebook Try Facebook ads Can specify targeting criteria Includes location, age, birthday, sex,
workplace, education and interests So, could run ads to women only in 30 to
40 age bracket in your area to test the results
Social Media – Facebook
Resources
• SimplyZesty – www.simplyzesty.com – excellent source of information on Facebook and other social media marketing
• Who’s Blogging What – “The Facebook Page Marketing Guide 2010”• Larry Chase Web Digest for Marketers – “Social media marketing guide – 12 key tools”• Hubspot - “Facebook marketing update Spring 2011”• Hubspot – “Facebook page marketing 2011”• Hubspot – “Small business cases studies – social media”
Why? To draw online traffic, and to sell to people 24 hours a day Video yourself talking about your product or service Relate to your business – e.g. “how we used the product” Video a customer talking about themselves and working with you Home-made is good Sign-up on YouTube (2 minutes and its free) Post it on YouTube, and customize your YouTube page Link to YouTube from your website, blog, Twitter ….
Social Media – YouTube
What?• Professional network• 250,000 users in Ireland• 75 million worldwide
Why? • So people can find you• So you can find prospective customers –
‘prospecting’• So you can promote events
How• Create your personal profile• Connect to people you know • Join Groups• Get staff to create their profiles and connect• Create company profile• Fill out company product and services
Social Media – LinkedIn
Social Media – LinkedIn
Social Media – Twitter
• What: Listen, Tweet, Respond• Why?: Traffic to your website, inbound links, leads, sales• How: 140 character “tweets”• E.g. press release headline• Can also insert links to stuff you like/find interesting• Follow others e.g. customers, influencers• Make your tweets useful e.g. links to web-site, video, news item• Tweet about good stuff your business is doing• Customer service
Social Media – Twitter
• Create your personal account• Look for people to “follow” e.g. someone in the same business, a supplier, commentator,
partner• Tweet about special offers, news, discounts• Link to your blog – tweet all your posts• Link to press releases – tweet all your releases• Link to your Facebook and LinkedIn Accounts• Put “Follow us” buttons on your email, website, blog• Check out what happens on Google analytics – e.g. can see people clicking on Tweet,
coming to blog, then coming to your website• Use Hootsuite or other tools to manage Twitter• Can use Hootsuite to track competitor feeds or monitor for particular phrases e.g. “help
with CRM wanted”
How to get started
What• Free storage area to put up slide presentations, word documents, PDF documents• Really useful for anyone involved in professional services• Can collect leads from people who download your content• Can place stuff here and link to it from your blog• Can also record voice over on your slides then post it here, then link to your blog or website –
good for recording a sales pitch or product demo
Social Media – Slideshare
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Email Marketing
Email marketing
Do not spam But do regularly email contacts who have
‘opted in’ to communications 91% of internet users use email Cost effective, broad reach Great way of building up regular
communications with existing customers and prospects
Should be based around offering something that is genuinely of interest to recipients
Download Inbound
Marketing Guide NOW!
Reply Visit to your website
Email marketing
Email System (e.g. Constant Contact or Vertical Response)
sends personalized email to each recipient and records who opens,
deletes, opts outUser writes the email text and uploads list of recipients to email system
1 2
3
Email marketing
Build your recipient list – 80% of the work First, build your list of recipients – existing contacts, add a ‘sign up for newsletter’ form on your
site, collect details at retail outlets Research customer websites See if you can send email to an association’s membership list
Next, design and write your email From Address and the Email Subject – this is how people decide to open or delete the email
so give it some thought Keep the subject line short – 9 words or so Keep text in the email short too, not too many paragraphs, use the word ‘you’ as soon and as
often as you can Offer something useful and/or valuable e.g. “free white paper”, “big discounts” etc. “Call to action” – if you want recipients to do something, tell them Test every element Run email through spam filter before sending
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SEO
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WWW
• People take different routes to your site when searching
• Their searches can fall into broad categories e.g. describing a problem, describing a symptom of the problem, describing what they think the solution is, searching for a product or brand name etc.
• You need to understand which kinds of searches are best for bringing your desired buyer to you
• You need to analyze and understand each major “search route” into your site so you can increase that traffic
• Use Google analytics, KISSMetrics, ClickTale to monitor and analyze where people are coming from and what search terms they are using
Search route 1
Search route 2
Search route N
Search Engine Optimization
In the long term, SEO is the most valuable traffic generation activity Relies on understanding search patterns, then using your website, content and social
media to bring those searchers to you If you believe people find products online, then you should understand how search works What search terms are related to your product, which ones bring people to your site,
which searchers are most likely to become customers?
Search Engine Optimization
Paid Advertising – (Pay-per-click) – About 25%
of clicks
Natural or ‘organic’ search results – about 75% of clicks.
This is what SEO is focused on
• You want to get found without paying Google all the time
• ‘Organic’ or natural search results
• How do you get to the top?
Search Engine Optimization
Optimize your site ‘on page’ Good ‘content’ – information A site that people find useful Seek links to the site Promote your site and
business on social media
Signals that Google uses to decide which page to show for a query
Search Engine Optimization
1. Keyword use in title tag2. Anchor text in inbound link3. Global link authority of site4. Age of site5. Link popularity within the site’s internal structure6. Topical relevance of inbound links7. Link popularity of site in topical community8. Keyword use in body text9. Global link popularity of sites that link to the site
Overall, it looks at relevance and popularity.The list below is from an SeoMoz.org poll of SEO companies – 9 most important factors
The Long Tail
Search Engine Optimization
The “head” of the search demand
Thousands of queries per day
The “Long tail” – 70% of queries - less frequently searched terms
There is more competition for the more frequent “head” terms so it will be harder for you to get to page 1 for those terms
There are less searches for “Long Tail” terms but it is easier for you to get to page 1 One strategy is to target lots of ‘long tail’ terms rather than a few ‘head’ terms
The Long Tail
Search Engine Optimization
Home page
Search term 1
Search term 2
Search term 3
Search term 4
You can only optimize a page for one key phrase So the number of terms you optimize for across the whole of your website is limited by
the number of pages
Four main tasks in SEO
Keyword research and selection – decide which terms you want to get found for
“On Page” – configure settings and text on your website
“Off Page” – encourage other sites to link to you
Social media – has an increasing effect on your rankings in the results pages
On page Off page
WWW
WWW
WWW
WWW
WWW
Search Engine Optimization
Social media
First step – KEYWORD ANALYSIS – what terms do you want to be found for? Question to ask: “If someone searched for this specific term, would I consider them a qualified
sales lead?” Start similar to Google PPC keyword analysis – use Google keyword tool But – you have to pick smaller selection of keywords to focus on Sort by search volume (high) and level of competition (low) Pick top candidate phrases for your key phrases Optimize specific pages for particular terms More pages, more terms you can optimize for
Search Engine Optimization
4. Text, internal links, bold
Search Engine Optimization
1. Page Title
3. Header tags
2. URL
5. Page description text
‘On page’ optimization – 5 settings per page, plus regular use of your target keywords on an optimized page with relevant content
A link: www.dohertywhite.com Links should be from other good sites To get links, provide information/content that
people think is valuable and should be shared
Identify a target list of sites you’d like to link to you
Who links to you now?
Who links to your competitors?
What sites are top for the search terms related to you?
What standard directories are there - irelandlookup.com,
localpages.ie, europages.ie
What associations are you a member of e.g. the Chamber
Search Engine Optimization
‘Off page’ optimization – get other sites to link to you
2. Landing page designSEO
SEO Resources
“Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” – Google
QuickSprout (Neil Patel) – good advice on driving traffic
SEOMoz.Org – Blog updates, “White board Friday” seminars
“SEO Quick Guide” – DohertyWhite (lists other resources)
“Learning SEO from the Experts” – Hubspot
“Introduction to Search Engine Optimization” – Hubspot
“The Art of SEO” - Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie Stricchiola
Bruce Clay – respected SEO expert
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Analytics
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Having identified objectives you should identify corresponding metrics and report on them Use Google analytics to measure and report on website traffic numbers, bounce rates and
traffic sources (among other metrics) Google adwords provides reports on impressions, click through rates, cost per click You can link Analytics and Adwords so you can monitor which visitors to your site from Google
ads go on to ‘convert’ Monitor leads generated, what they downloaded, their IP address etc The email marketing systems provide reporting on bounce rates, open rates, click through
rates per email campaign You can generate SEO reports that show traffic per keyword, relative improvement over time,
competitor ranking for selected keywords etc. Combine the key metrics into a one-page weekly summary so you can easily plot your progress
against your top 5 to 10 objectives e.g. Traffic, leads, lead quality, email response rates etc.
Analytics
Metrics , Analytics and Reporting
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Putting It All Together
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The overall approach
Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them?
What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers?
Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the buyers, create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ...
Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social media
B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content
1
2
3
4
5
Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, website, social media and email so they learn and understand your proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice
?How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth focusing on, how do you differentiate from them?
6b
B2C – Sell your product(s) now 6a
7
http://
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Revise website based on buyer
analysis, add landing pages
Generate content to attract visitor
registrations
Launch Google pay-per-click
ads
Launch Search Engine Optimization
activities
Generate PR and online PR
Email Marketing
Post to Corporate Blog and Social
Media
Hardcopy Mail to selected contacts
Telemarketing qualification of
warm leads
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9
The tools you use
The overall approach
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How do your promote your SaaS system?
“What are you selling?”
Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
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Bring people to your website
Persuade them to sign-up for a
Free Trial or Download
Persuade them to pay for your
product or service
1 2 3Convince them to renew each year –
retain your customers
4
How do you sell to those buyers?
Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention
“What are you selling?” Your Value Proposition
“Who are you selling to?”
Your target buyers
“How will you sell?”
Your acquisition process
A B C
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Key Points:• Understand your buyers• Be clear about the value you deliver• Get good at online marketing• Use content as ‘bait’• Keep cost of sales low – use web and phone• Measure performance of your process• Continually improve conversion rates
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Outcomes from today’s seminar
1. Why Digital Marketing is important for technology startups
2. How you can get started
3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end
4. How to prioritize what you should do first
5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc.
6. Where to look for help
At the end of today you should know …
• Harvard MBA course on startups – recommended reading• http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2011/01/launching-tech-ventures-par
t-iv.html?spref=tw
• Building a sales and marketing machine – Dave Skok – • http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/slides-sales-marketing-machine/
• Brad Feld, VC, author of “Do more faster” – www.feld.com
Additional resources
Email [email protected] +353 86 383 8981Phone +353 7491 16689Twitter @michaelgwhite
www.dohertywhite.com
Thank You